human-first in innovation

human-first in innovation

Thinking

Mar 21, 2018

AI as Enabler (I)

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped" Isaiah 35: 5

By

Stefanie Wibbeke

Wherever
artificial intelligence is discussed, the apocalypticists are not far off.
Therefore, we start today with a Bible quote that perfectly describes the
current development: Artificial intelligence is currently developing into an
important component of inclusion. Inclusion in the sociological, not
ideologically coloured form. AI helps the people regardless of their ability to
an accepted, equal and self-determined participation in society.

Around 36
million blind and 70 million deaf people worldwide are currently struggling for
inclusion (Source: WHO). In addition,
there are a large number of people for whom shopping in the supermarket or
visiting an unknown restaurant is a challenge due to various restrictions. Here
AI can overcome barriers and promote independence. Let’s discuss a few examples
below.

"Seeing AI", the
flagship project of Microsoft (available free of charge), supports, for
example, the interpretation of visual impressions of any kind. Currencies are
recognized with ease, scenarios are verbalized in detail and the app even
decrypts the facial expressions of individuals. Great potential lies here for
those who struggle with the recognition of emotions. Field-testing, the app
showed some difficulty with the recognition of age: eyeglasses basically made
the individual older and also a long day at the office falsified the
interpretation of age greatly. But I have to say that I felt about the age of
the app that day. However, the recognition of surface textures and writing
worked excellently. The speed with which recorded objects were analyzed and
verbalized was also impressive.

Aira, a service based on Google Glasses for
people with limited or no vision, is also a good example of where the journey
is heading. Currently, most of the services are done by human agents. They
interpret and verbalize the user's environment in real time via the augmented
reality dashboard - similar to the "Be my Eyes" app. But with
"hey Chloe" TM
(news release from March 2018), an artificial intelligence that can detect
medication takes over and processes some of the human translation performance/stimulus
processing. Another good example of the current development, which focuses not
only on the healthy, well-positioned hipster in the technical development, is
the sign'n App. This translates the
written or spoken word into gestures, thus ensuring quick communication.

All
applications and services that compensate many constraints are an important
step towards inclusion and self-determination. As John Maeda said at SXSW
in Austin, "When you are inclusive, there's a huge opportunity to make
better products, which leads to more successful business."

In fact, tech
companies seem to have less trouble with inclusion. Pay attention to Daisy
Playback or OCR, which converts text into a file and plays it via screen reader
voice or connected Bluetooth Braille display. Another good example is the
award-winning Braille Smartwatch.
Accessibility is common sense in the development of many apps and other
technical applications today; true to our claim "Human-first in
Innovation".

Photo by
Rhendi Rukmana on Unsplash

Stefanie Wibbeke

Head of Marketing

Stefanie is Head of Marketing at INDEED. She is responsible for spreading the word about us through digital and social marketing, partnerships, events, and more. As humanities scholar, she questions our work from a different angle and makes us explain projects with the human experience in mind. Residing in Hamburg by choice, she couldn’t live without her daily dose of crocheting.